Main account Profile: Navcan
Smurf: Navn
Twitch Stream: twitch.tv/navcan

Hi there! I've been playing Zyra for many seasons! This guide is just a very general guideline of how to play Zyra, with runes and itemization. If you'd like to ask more questions, drop a comment or drop by my stream! I stream almost everyday, and still play Zyra occasionally. Thank you for reading!

If you're interested in my other guides:

Enchanters:

Lulu -> Support Lulu
Nami -> Support Nami
Karma -> Support Karma
Sona -> Support Sona
Yuumi -> Support Yuumi
Milio -> Support Milio
Soraka -> Support Soraka

Mage/Tank/Utility:

Zyra -> Support Zyra
Ashe -> Support Ashe
Amumu -> Support Amumu
Heimerdinger -> Support Heimerdinger
Lissandra -> Support Lissandra

Off-Meta/Fun stuff

Miss Fortune -> Support Miss Fortune
Veigar -> Support Veigar
Trundle -> Support Trundle
Jarvan IV -> Support Jarvan
Pantheon -> Support Pantheon

Pros:

- Easy to play
- Lots of itemization options
- A lot of self agency to carry the game.
- Still useful even if behind.
- Can be an AP threat for your team.

Cons:

- Immobile.
- A bit of a clunky ability kit.

TLDR; Figure out what you're going to build before the game even starts, then go the appropriate build. Try to match your runes with your items too.

Shoes Options

Sorcerer's Shoes
- Good overall, but a bit pricy. If you're not doing too well, then you can get...

Ionian Boots of Lucidity
- Ability Haste is always good.

Plated Steelcaps
- If the enemy team is all AD, then this is a decent pick-up too.

Support Item Options

Zaz'Zak's Realmspike
- This will be in almost all of your builds, except for when surviving becomes a key issue then...

Celestial Opposition
- This is when there's some kind of assassin running around making it impossible to do anything, like a very fed Rengar
- You can actually sell your support item, and switch to this immediately in the middle of the game.

Legendarys

Liandry's Torment
- Easy to apply and one of the best items to build.

Blackfire Torch
- Easy to apply, and is actually better than Liandry's Torment early since the damage is a flat amount, cheaper, and gives more desirable stats to keep up your pressure in the game.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter
- A great item, it's cheap, makes your plants even more annoying to deal with, and provides a ton of health for survivability.
- It's so good that it's viable to outright rush this item, mainly if you're even or behind.

Morellonomicon
- If your opponents heal excessively, then this will be a good buy. Plants will be able to apply Heal Cut very easily.
- Stick with Oblivion Orb first, then buy this after you have nothing else to finish.

Shadowflame
- Stacks pretty nicely with the magic penetration from Sorcerer's Shoes, and would not build one without the either.

Rabadon's Deathcap
- Buy this as your 3rd item as you won't have enough AP to justify it's steep price.

Cryptbloom
- If your opponents are stacking magic resist, then you can likely just buy this second, over Shadowflame.

Zhonya's Hourglass
- An amazing active, especially for Zyra who is quite immobile and vulnerable without Grasping Roots.
- If they have assassin's or abilities to easily block like Karthus Requiem then this will do wonders.

Banshee's Veil
- If you're good at not getting hit, but there's some unavoidable spell like Karthus ult, you can actually just sit on Verdant Barrier. But otherwise, this will give you some safety.

Mejai's Soulstealer
- If you have 10 stacks on Dark Seal then getting Mejai's Soulstealer for the movement speed bonus will be worth it.
- I'd also only purchase this with Luden's Tempest as the 5 Magic Penetration will be much more useful than Ability Haste from Liandry's Torment

TLDR; Use your plants efficiently and wisely! You only have 2 abilities to spawn plants and they will determine everything that you can do.

- I would highly recommend turning on range indicators, as being able to know how far you can spawn a plant is a large part of Zyra's gameplay.

Garden of Thorns

- A majority of where seeds spawn tend to be random, but there are a few factors to try and manipulate the spawn location. This is based on testing and what I've observed.
- 1. They spawn towards the enemy base.
- 2. They spawn towards enemy champions.
- 3. Nearby Brush. (about 300 range)
- 4. The direction you're facing.
- So for example, if you are mid lane, and you face towards the enemy base with no brush or enemy champions nearby, they will almost always spawn somewhere in front of you.
- Since this is a Support guide, you'll mostly be bot lane, and the seeds will spawn towards your enemies in lane, and occasionally in the brush if you're close enough to it. And occasionally behind you if you're facing towards your own base.

- During laning phase, if you can constantly push your lane, these seeds end up behind and/or around you very often, which makes ganking or engaging on you risky for your opponents. Always keep in mind where they are and position around them.
- If your opponents are paying attention, they'll also be trying to step on your seeds so you can't spawn plants. If they start walking towards a seed, you can also walk towards it and threaten to spawn the plant and hit them. At this point it's mind games, but its something to keep in mind.
- Outside of laning phase, you usually won't have any Mana issues, and you can just spawn plants using Deadly Spines wherever you go, as they'll just grant free vision and sometimes enemies just walk past the plants and take free damage. This becomes much more potent once you have Liandry's Torment and/or Rylai's Crystal Scepter
- Seeds tend to give away the idea that you may be in the area nearby, so if you're trying to ambush someone from brush or around a corner, your position may be compromised at times.
- If seeds are spawning while you are in a bush, that means the enemy can see you.

Deadly Spines

- This is one of the few abilities in the game with a cast perpendicular to yourself, so it tends to hit most people.
- Always spawn stray seeds from Garden of Thorns after laning phase as the range of the plants are pretty far, and it's just free damage on whoever tries to fight the plant.
- This is your primary poke tool in lane, and try to time this with Garden of Thorns seed spawns, and Rampant Growth so that even if you miss Deadly Spines, the plant will still do damage to them.
- Plants spawned from Deadly Spines have the same attack range as you (575), and that's longer than most ranged champions in the game. So you can usually damage someone if you cast Deadly Spines then Rampant Growth and reach someone from over a 1000 range away. This is very useful for applying Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Liandry's Torment.

Rampant Growth

- Each time you score a takedown (kill or assist), you get a seed charge, keep this in mind in extended fights to keep spawning plants.
- Placing a seed briefly grants vision, and when they're stepped on they reveal whoever steps on it. You can also cast Deadly Spines or Grasping Roots towards brush, with the "plant spawn" just barely into the bush you want to check, and put a seed into it during the animation cast of either ability. This makes it so that if someon IS in that brush, and you need to suddenly retreat, you won't be stuck in any cast animations while retreating. For this, most of the times, casting Deadly Spines is better.

Grasping Roots

- The plants spawned from this have quite a crippling slow. The slows stack additively, twice, from 30% to 60%. So quite often, you can actually miss Grasping Roots but with 2 Rampant Growth charges, you can cut off enemy escape paths with just the slow.
- This is your only basic ability that can help yourself or others with, so maxing it first is fairly common.
- Once you have Rylai's Crystal Scepter, you won't really need to spawn Grasping Roots anymore.
- Against champions that hook or pull you like Blitzcrank or Thresh, if they begin walking towards you, you can pre-emtively cast Grasping Roots at them, and place a seed between you and them, so that even if you miss, the plant you spawn can block the incoming hook. And if they don't use it, they will need to walk through the plant that slows them.

Stranglethorns

- This does NOT spawn plants. It only buffs the plants that are already there. So try to spawn plants first.
- It takes 2 seconds for the knock-up to happen, so once you get max rank Grasping Roots and you land it and cast Stranglethorns, if the enemy has no tenacity, then the knock-up is guaranteed.
- This is a huge ult, and can act as a zoning tool for a few seconds in the jungle, and even in lanes.

Keystones

Arcane Comet
- Overall good for poke and the whole Sorcery tree is very good for Zyra. If the enemy laners have any healing abilities, I'd go for Electrocute instead.

Dark Harvest
- If the enemy team composition is all squishy, this will proc very often. If they have any tanks at all, I wouldn't take this.

First Strike
- If you can always hit your enemies first, this will give a lot of gold for mid game so that you can spike on your mage items.

Minor Runes

Nimbus Cloak
- This will greatly increase your survivability as Zyra doesn't have any mobility options.

Manaflow Band
- I personally don't find this is necessary since it's rare to have mana issues with Zyra if you are using your abilities in conjunction with Rampant Growth. As long as you don't endlessly spam Deadly Spines or Grasping Roots you won't run out of mana, and the mana you get from Blackfire Torch and mana regen from World Atlas should be sufficient.

Transcendence
- Zyra is heavily gated by her ability cooldowns, so getting ability haste is very good.

Scorch
- Plant auto attacks proc this, so it's just free damage constantly.

Taste of Blood
- This is nice as it'll constantly go off during the whole game from plants auto attacking all the time.

Zombie Ward
- Zyra can scout brush fairly safely by putting plants in them while she clears wards at range, so this'll stack quickly.

Ghost Poro
- If the enemy has "run at you" junglers such as Hecarim or Udyr or Nunu & Willump, then placing a ward at jungle entrances will be nice, since the poro can continue to scout for you.

Treasure Hunter
- If you can get kills in your lane, this'll be very nice to snowball with.

Relentless Hunter
- This'll also help get you from place to place sooner since Zyra has no mobility options.

Magical Footwear
- Save gold on buying shoes and get your mage items sooner!

Cash Back
- If you need to rush shoes to dodge skill shots in lane, then this will be the back-up option.

Biscuit Delivery
- Helps keep the poke pressure in lane, and nothing else to take in this row.

Cosmic Insight
- Just a solid rune choice overall and nothing else to take in this row.

Laning Phase/Early Game

- Zyra's level 1 is actually quite weak. At best you can hope for a seed spawn from Garden of Thorns on the enemy, and set it off with Deadly Spines. But otherwise, try to push your lane at level 1 so that you can have plenty of Garden of Thorns seeds behind/around you to work with.
- Zyra's auto attack is very fast, and has a lot of range, and is best utilized to auto attack your enemies, then immediately running back into brush to drop minion aggro.
- Keep an eye on your own seeds from Garden of Thorns, and try not to let your opponents step on them for free. Either hit them with a spell or an auto attack to make them hesitate!
- Your Spellthief's Edge should turn into Frostfang at around 6-7 minutes on average, so you can usually look to recall once it's completed and have roaming or warding opportunities before your opponents. Because of this timing, you can look to ward enemy red or blue buffs since those will spawn around the 7 minute mark, or roam to mid lane for a kill.
- Otherwise, if you keep perma pushing your lane, you can likely hit the enemy tower and get a few tower plates. There will be a lot of seeds from Garden of Thorns around or behind you while you constantly push, so your opponents will have a very hard time trying to engage and fight you, your minions, and your plants.
- If you can't constantly push your lane, then this is where Zyra will feel fairly weak in lane. So you'll need to have Grasping Roots ready to go incase your jungler or mid laner comes down to help. Play to poke with Deadly Spines and pick up Spellthief's Edge stacks whenever you can.

Mid/Late game

- Look to spawn plants from Garden of Thorns wherever you go as you'll end up getting a lot of free damage on enemies, especially if you have Liandry's Torment
- If you're doing well, then very often you can kill a lot of squishy enemies by using your full combo of Grasping Roots > Deadly Spines > 2 Rampant Growth > Stranglethorns.
- If you're not doing well, then look to lock down and peel threats to your carrys, and scout with your plants so that you and your team can get around the map safely.

Grading Explanation below the lists! Check the RANK too!

- Zyra has a lot of self agency in most games since you get to build damage. She has a variety of builds and relatively simple kit that can be very rewarding as well.

13.24 Emerald and Below

13.24 Diamond+

Tier List Grading Points

- Winrates
- Champion Difficulty (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Counter-play (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Flex pick for draft (more relevant in diamond+)
- Early game (more relevant in diamond+)
- Late game/scaling (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Anything in the (_Letter_+) row, means it's better the higher in elo you go. Anything in (_Letter_-) row, means it's better the lower in elo you go.

Overall Points:

- Games last longer the lower in elo you go. Therefore, mage supports tend to do much better since you can buy your items, and you basically become another carry threat. This leads to enchanters/engage being weaker in lower level play since you would rely on your teammtes more often.

- Champions that are fundamentally easier to execute on will have higher win rates. Since it is more unlikely players are pilot-ing their champion runes/builds/kit efficiently, the easier the champion, the more likely to maximize their kits. This is especially apparent in Platinum and below.

- I would recommend playing any of the champs in S+, S, or A. However you can climb on almost anything, provided you always look to maximize your champion kit, mechanics, and impact on the game. Winning is the result of improving.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below! I'll be editing this as I go and be sure to let you know once I have more updates. Or if you'd like to ask me a question directly, you can go to my twitch stream! twitch.tv/navcan

Cheers and thank you for reading! Good luck on the rift